B2C Content Marketers Focusing On Their Audience

According to a recent report from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, as presented by Marketing Charts, the most popular way to learn about target audiences is through keywords research (59%). Techniques Used By B2C Marketers To Learn About Their Audiences Technique % of Respondents Keyword research 59% Social listening 54 Website analysis 54 Customer feedback/panels 50 Competitive analysis 49 A/B testing 47 Employee feedback 45 Database analysis 35 Quantitative primary research 33 Qualitative primary research 30 Auditing buyer data 27 Data Source: Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs, October 2016 Based on a survey of 480 North American marketers who primarily sell to consumers (B2C), or to both consumers and businesses (B2C and B2B), the report indicates that 7 in 10 B2C content marketers agree that they frequently consider how their content impacts the overall experience a person has with their organization (71%), and that they focus on creating content for their audience versus their brand (69%). With almost three-quarters of B2C marketers planning to create more content this year, says the report, respondents are using 7 content marketing tactics. The most commonly used marketing tactics are social media content (85%), blogs (75%) and email newsletters (75%). According to the report, B2C marketers were most apt to say that social media content (58%), blogs (51%) and email newsletters (43%) would be critical to their content marketing success next year. Email (89%) and Facebook (89%) are the most common distribution channels used, with Twitter (73%), LinkedIn (66%) and YouTube (65%) also popular. Interestingly, while email is easily rated the most important channel to distribute content (with 91% considering it important), print is also rated highly. Most Important B2C Content Distribution Channels (4 or 5 on 5-point Scale; 4/5=Extremely/Very Important; % of Respondents) Distribution Channel % Of Respondents eMail 91% Facebook 68 Print 62 YouTube 60 LinkedIn 57 Twitter 57 Instagram 55 Pinterest 42 Google+ 29 Data Source: Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs, October 2016 As for paid content promotion, social promotion (89%) is the most widely adopted method, with search engine marketing (76%) and print or other offline promotion (68%) next. While last year sales was the top organizational goal for content marketing, this year’s survey finds sales way back in the 5th spot. While almost 8 in 10 agree that they can demonstrate how content marketing has increased engagement, only 63% can point to content’s impact on sales.